Samsung’s Ballie is an adorable AI robot that looks like a tennis ball and controls your home

Samsung has announced a lot at CES 2020. However, a small spherical robot that’ll follow you around and control your smart home wasn’t something we expected to see.

During Samsung’s keynote conference at CES 2020 it announced Ballie – this is an adorable ‘robot’ that looks a bit like a cricket or tennis ball. Ballie can follow you around, record special moments and, according to a demo video, help clear up after your pets. What more can you ask for from an AI assistant?

Ballie has a camera for recognising you, what looks like a USB-C port on the back (for charging?) and it’ll roll around making ‘bleeps’ and ‘bloops’ that would make R2-D2 and BB-8 jealous. I think I want to take one home with me right now.

But cuteness will only get you so far and Samsung has built a lot of AI skills into this little guy. For instance, a Ballie demo video showed the robot recognising a dog knocking over a bowl of cereal and as a result Ballie knew to enable a robot vacuum to come and clean up the mess. A niche issue yes, but clever nevertheless.

Samsung said it can act as a fitness assistant too and it will be able to connect to other smart devices in your home. The fitness features sound interesting, even if Samsung didn’t really go into how this will work – just that it’ll get you moving even if you’d prefer to just stay on the sofa.

Samsung seems like its positioning Ballie as an extra member of your family and it can use its inbuilt camera to capture ‘special’ moments, recognise your pets and more.

No pricing and release details were given during the keynote address, however we’ll update this story when we know when it’s available and how much this cute little AI robot assistant will cost.

Max is one the longest-serving members of the Trusted Reviews team. He was features editor but his expertise on mobile phones and tablets meant he transitioned to the role of mobile, wearables and tab…

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